Posted By The Denver Post On January 25, 2007 @ 2:06 pm In Game On | 4 Comments

Sometimes I wonder about game developers.

In a way, I can understand their willingness to work 80 hours a week, chained to desk, fed nothing but pizza and a caffeine drip. I can appreciate their quiet craftsmanship accentuated by an overall lack of limelight and red carpet adoration. I can even forgive their introverted male obsession with oddly proportioned women and big guns.

But when it comes to awards, I have to ask:

What are you guys thinking?

The finalists for the The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Annual Interactive Achievement Awards have been posted online. And a gander at their finalists [1]makes me scratch my head.

The AIAS is sort of like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences â€“ a shadowy group of pros who dish out coveted awards — In the case of movies, the Oscars. In the case of games, the Interactive Achievement Awards.

In either case, these awards represent either the highest form of praise from your peers or a sort of lowest common denominator process that selects the least objectionable of various options. Or, maybe it just shows what the people who make our entertainment really think about their product.

Wherever you fall on that issue, it’s clear that the videogame Academy is in love with Gears of War. This titled grabbed 10 nominations this year, far ahead of everyone else on that count alone.

So, what can we make of this?

I’ve played Gear and I really like Gears. Gears is fun and it accomplishes its goal of recreating the sort of duck-and-cover cowboy’s and Indian’s play kids have enjoyed for millenniums. And Gears look great. It’s about the prettiest game you’ve ever seen based on a planet destroyed by an alien scourge the crawls up through holes in the ground. Oh, and it uses Tears for Fears in its commerical. Cool.

But the game of the year? That’s like naming that kid who can eat the most hot dogs Time’s Man of the Year. At some point we have to separate obsessive from heroic and odd from innovative.

Sure, Gears has accomplished something with its obsessive focus on the tactical squad shooter genre. And for that they should earn the praise of all game developers. When it comes to dishing out game of the year awards, it seems to me the focus ought to shift to the sorts of the things that really matter to the game development business. Like:

â€¢ Making games for kids that don’t suck
â€¢ Making games that women actually might like to play
â€¢ Exploring themes more complex and compelling that â€“ me mad, me kill
â€¢ Producing games with political or socially subversive messages
â€¢ Making games that challenge the idea of what games can be, where they can go and what they can say
â€¢ Or just making a massively multiplayer online game that isn’t anything like World of Warcraft

I understand that every film can’t be Casa Blanca and every game can’t be Katamari Damacy. Fine. We need our Adam Sandler films as much as we need those by P.T. Anderson. But we really do need both. Even Anderson and Sandler figured that out and made a movie together.

So, to game developers I say this:

You don’t need to get all slack-jawed and squeally girlie about those RADICALLY AWESOME GRAPHICS AND SICK MULTIPLAYER games. Send some of your love over to the real innovation going on in your industry. You don’t need to encourage anyone to make another game like Gears of War. I guarantee you, there is an endless supply of those games already in production. Instead, spend some time cultivating those little sprouts of genius what will keep games vibrant and interesting. You’ll be happy you did.